One More Thing
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Oneshot, set after the episode "Dead". Eames manages to draw a comparison of two famous fictional detectives to her partner.


One More Thing

Disclaimer: All standard disclaimers apply, don't own, don't sue.

Alexandra Eames stepped lively into the office early one April morning, practically bouncing with every step she took, a vast contrast to her partner, who still looked half asleep as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Morning, Bobby."

Goren let out a garbled yawn and replied, "Morning, Eames." He watched her walk almost enthusiastically across the office and wondered what had gotten into her? Exactly how was it possible to be so energetic in the morning when he himself felt like he was two steps away from being a zombie?

Alex made it to her desk and stopped before she turned back to Goren and said to him, "You know, I was just thinking about something…the Rowan case a while back, you remember it?"

"Uh yeah," Goren answered, "That'd be a little hard to forget about."

Alex skipped a beat before asking him, "Where did you ever happen to get that idea about lying to Harry Rowan's wife about Eddie Ferguson having a cap on his tooth?"

Goren held his coffee mug in one hand and rubbed one tired eye with the other before getting both eyes open and responding, "Ah…I don't know, just came to me I guess."

"Oh yeah?"

Goren looked at her inquisitively through one fully open eye and remarked, "Yeah…?" not really getting where she was going with this.

It didn't seem to matter much because the subject seemed to be dropped after that, or at least it seemed to be until he sat down. Eames looked up from her paperwork and said out of the blue, "You ever watch Columbo, Bobby?"

Goren got out another loud yawn and scratched the back of his head and said to her, "Uh, yeah, a few times. I think I saw it more as a kid when it was on regularly…my mom didn't care for it especially but I liked it. I…liked the detective shows when I was growing up, very different from the real thing, isn't it?"

"There was an old rerun on last night," Eames said to him as she looked to him to gauge his reaction, "Very interesting episode."

"Mm-hmm," Goren dismissively replied as he sorted through some files.

"See, this guy 'accidentally' kills a woman, wraps her body in the trunk of his car, ditches her, and goes about his regular day," Eames told him, "The Lieutenant has the body exhumed and finds out that she wore contacts, only one of which is still intact, he says the other one came out during the struggle. So the guy, whose car is being kept overnight in a garage because it won't start, breaks into the garage, breaks into the trunk of his car and digs out a contact lens."

"And in comes Columbo with the whole police force to get his confession and arrest him, right?" Bobby asked tiredly, "And…he reveals the car purposely didn't start, because he stuck a potato in the tail pipe specifically so it _would_ be kept in a locked garage overnight so the man _would_ have to break and enter to access it."

"Something like that. Only, once the man's arrested, Columbo says he doesn't know _who_ the lens in the trunk belonged to, because the woman _didn't_ wear contacts."

"Ah huh," Goren replied, "So he gave himself away all for nothing, which Columbo knew would be his undoing because such a miniscule mistake could destroy him if there was even a chance it could prove to be true."

"Sound familiar?" Eames asked.

"Yeah I guess so," Goren said dismissively.

Eames leaned forward on her desk and asked him point blank, "A 70s TV cop show, Bobby? That's where you got the idea from?"

"It's, possible," Goren answered, "The same routines are often used in crime fiction, it might've come to mind when we were interviewing the Rowans."

Alex shook her head and laughed, "You really are unbelievable."

Goren absently scratched behind one ear and replied, "I'm not unbelievable…what's unbelievable is that criminals will still fall for something that's 40 years old."

Eames largely managed to swallow a laugh and she said to her partner, "You know now that I think of it, you remind me of Columbo."

That got Goren's attention, and now he couldn't help chuckling a bit, "What, crawling around looking for pens, always 'oh…one more thing'."

"You're not much different," she told him, "You're always stumbling into things accidentally _on purpose_. Always going on about your mother, your brother, your girlfriend, your nephew, your father…"

"That's…that's part of the job," Goren replied, "We tell suspects what's convenient to get something out of them, it helps if it comes from an immediate family member."

"The Mafia doesn't have as extensive a family as you do when you talk to perps," Alex pointed out.

"Well it, it gets them to open up, it's efficient," was his only defending response.

They didn't speak again after that, not for nearly half an hour when they finished catching up on their paperwork. It was a relatively slow day for Major Cases, at one point Eames looked over and saw Goren was reading one of the books he kept on the small addition self he'd drilled into his desk.

"Anything interesting?" she inquired, finally breaking the silence.

Goren looked up from his book briefly and explained, "Just looking into something. I saw this carving at a house we were at recently, four heads, four _men's_ heads. There," he turned his book around so she could see, "There's an old legend from Amsterdam of a servant girl who helped four robbers climb in the window of her employers' home one night while they were out, and then she chopped off their heads one by one with a kitchen knife so they couldn't take the wife's jewels. The husband and wife had a statue made of the four heads to signify how trustworthy she was with their valuables. It's, it's The House with the Heads, it was built in 1622 in Amsterdam, though there are actually six sculpted heads of gods and goddesses there."

"You know now that I think of it," Eames said almost dismissively, "There are times you remind me of _another_ detective."

"Oh?" Goren asked, and took a wild guess, "Philip Marlowe?"

Eames picked up a book from under a pile of papers on her desk and went over to Goren's desk and dropped on it a hardback volume titled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Goren got out a weak chuckle at the comparison as he looked at the title of the book. He flipped the cover open and remarked, "Elementary, my dear Eames."

"Sherlock Holmes _never_ said that," Eames told him, "That was Basil Rathbone in the 30's movies."

Goren's eyebrows raised as he glanced up at her and said uncertainly, "Maybe…maybe I'm starting to rub off on you."

"I hope not," Alex replied as she sat back down at her desk, "I don't think Deakins could survive two of you."

Goren got out a small snort and concurred, "I doubt most people actually could."

Author's note: I got the idea to do this story after seeing how the grand undoing of the murderer in "Dead" seemed to very eerily copy the "Death Lends a Hand" episode of "Columbo".

Also for those who are curious, the folk tale from Amsterdam, "The House with the Heads" that Goren mentions, came from a book called Legends & Folk Tales of Holland, written by Adele De Leeuw in 1963.

Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
